


green the shade of leaves

by millimallow



Series: the world of owa [10]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, short fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 06:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17637839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millimallow/pseuds/millimallow
Summary: about family, prejudice and home.see me like i see you.





	green the shade of leaves

this place is not my home. but being born where i was is a curse placed upon me at birth. the illegitimate son of a prestigious family, born to the reclusive unwed daughter who hid away from their big ideas. for she had her own- intruding on the realm of fiends, looking my father in the eyes. gold inscription on his skin, horns embezzled to replace the sun down where it doesn’t shine. telling him, her voice as clear as day,

“ _i’m not afraid of you._ ”

i’ve never met him, but in the short time me and my mother spent together, she told me this. according to her, i look just like him. she could not bare to be around me when i could only remind her of him. so i was surrendered to my grandfather. he was a steely man who made his fortune in coal and logs, half-elf half-human with an elven trophy wife from the old nobility. i say was- who am i to know whether he lives or not? though he taught me for much of my childhood, the time between now and my last hearing from him spans years that extend over a continent. he was distraught at my appearance, my burn-red skin and protruding horns, the volume of my forest green hair. yet there was not much to be done. he had punished his daughter already, and she had to be coaxed more forcefully than even him to look me in the eye. infanticide, predictably, would offer no positive consequence amongst his important international business partners even if he could indeed get away with it in siventia. so he held me in his arms and gave me my name- kolite tarblood. i was not to inherit the family title, instead slated for other gifts.

my childhood i spent in the company of few others, and remarkably few children anywhere near my own age. my family drew away the more i grew, old superstition telling that the chaos grew in my body as it became larger. my teacher was a private one- the sprightly elven son of a younger iron producer my grandfather was familiar with. he was not to inherit the business, so he had been put to other use. i would watch with interest as he would bring me a bound set of leather books in twine, the covers red and green and blue, the colours of _me_. even the gravest words he spoke in elation, voice pitching where the stories and records peaked in excitement. and unlike anyone else, his suspicion of me was absent. i heard it whispered between the two patriarchs- the young man had been educated in talgene mer, where there were other people like me, walking the streets freely. in their voice the idea was surrounded by tutting, but it was the first i had heard of a place where tieflings- of whom i was one, i learned later in life- were people of the outdoors. they were students, businesspeople, teachers, artists.

for months afterward, in the little notebook given to me, i scribbled messy drawings of this place. the sketches came with notes; notes which explained the laws and the culture and the food (mostly edicts outlawing bedtime and my favourite meal, porridge with honey and figs). my teacher stayed by my side when even my grandfather would pull away from me when he came to inspect my room, refusing to touch my things. on my demand, he taught me about the world. why my grandfather was intrigued at the prospect of war with u’baani, what lay on the other side of the ocean that i had only seen in pictures, where was the place my father hailed from? the last part he could not answer me. but he told me of my mother’s people, the lowland humans and the caluutian elves from what was once the trevailian empire, now sweetgrass and soretta samke. caluutes like him, he said, were spread over the world. they originated in trevailia, spread to the north-east, forming their own little groups, each a little different. and when the empire cast my ancestors out many of them came here. siventia; the land of forests and fields. lush and fertile enough to support a people, establish a nobility amongst them, give these elves the ability to integrate the lowland humans into their society.

but the place he taught me of that caught my eye the most was the northern wilds. the frigid landscape of snow and rock where further waves of our ancestors were exiled. known as the thessaline there, a word which translates decently into “outcast” or “exiled to a cage” from their own language. poor and sparse amongst the humans and dragonborn who make up the majority, living in secluded homes, keeping to themselves. stripped of many rights by a historic agreement by the trevailian emperor and the chief dragonborn clan leaders.

i asked him then if there were people like me there. he gave me the name- a tiefling, the offspring of a fiend and someone existing on the physical plane. then he told me yes. the stories of others from siventia came softly from his mouth, how they were the ones who held the gap between dragonborn and human that was otherwise maintained. being neither gave them a strength that could not belong to anyone else, so they braved the cold.

i left when i graduated, my plan being to attend law schooling in one of the great cities. my grandfather approved it, willing to fund whatever would make me leave home and give him peace. so i headed to kefhorda, its spruce-wood and stone architecture calling me once it became visible over the horizon. perhaps i had not shed a single tear leaving home, substituting that gesture for a confident handshake on the part of my tutor, but i did cry. i cried for meeting someone like me, bright hair and feline eyes intact, and again for the time when i met the thessaline. poor recluses, isolated and often on the move, who looked like the family i knew, yet did not turn away from me.


End file.
